Computer applications are pieces of computer software that help a user thereof perform a task or a number of related tasks. In the electronic environment of today, these applications are often provided in such a way as to be accessible to a number of users. To accomplish this, a provider of the application may host the application from a particular location that is accessible via a network, such as a local area network or wide area network, such as the Internet.
In hosting the application, the provider usually hopes to attain a state in which the application is available to users in a continuous manner. However, sometimes problems arise that may cause availability to be interrupted. For example, a catastrophic disaster, such as an earthquake, fire, etc., could occur at the primary host site. In the alternative, the machine or machines may experience hardware and/or software malfunctions that cause the application to cease performing. Alternatively, communications between the host and the network may be lost, resulting in an inability of users to access the application. When these events occur, providers often perform disaster recovery to restore application functionality to users.
Currently, providers can prepare for disaster recovery in several ways. Many companies opt for an active/dormant solution in which the primary site is live and active and replicates to one or more disaster recovery servers, which are not live, in the background. During a disaster recovery (DR) event, the traffic fails over to the disaster recovery site and the previously dormant server or servers assume the full workload.